PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Vitaly Mansky, director of Under the Sun from the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

No country shuts off its borders quite like North Korea. The footage, information and news from North Korea is rare and enigmatic. What veteran filmmaker Vitaly Mansky did in his documentary Under the Sun was to try and exploit his Russian origins to make a documentary about everyday life in North Korea, a feat made possible by the fact that Russia, along with China, is one of only two countries with which North Korea has international relations. Nevertheless, the restrictions imposed upon the filmmaker were evident from the beginning – the film was in its planning stage a year prior to the beginning of shooting.

In the end, the filming of Under the Sun was far more enlightening that the sometimes absurd artificiality of the images being shot themselves. In this interview with Mansky, we ask the director about these restrictions and how they shaped the final film. We also ask him, somewhat inevitably, what the reaction from North Korea has been, as well as from other parts of the world. It seems like North Korea, predictably, wanted the film to have been destroyed initially. But then an even stranger development occurred…

UNDER THE SUN: The renowned documentarist gets the go-ahead to record the life of an ordinary North Korean family. To what extent will he be able to observe what goes on behind the screen of pervasive communist ideology? Unique footage that probes deep into one of the most heavily guarded places on Earth.